Hockey World: Yzerman looks for fresh faces for Team Canada

Who’s Hot: Raffi Torres has come alive for the Phoenix Coyotes with six goals in his last 12 games.

Who’s Not: Dany Heatley has two goals in his last 17 games for the Minnesota Wild and only has 20 on the year.

Marquee Matchups:

Monday: Battle for eighth in the West with the Colorado Avalanche in the Shark Tank in San Jose

Tuesday: Battle for eighth in the East with the surging Buffalo Sabres in Washington to play the Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin, who suddenly has 35 goals.

In 2014, when the NHL elite hikes over to Sochi, the Russian resort city on the Black Sea where Stalin once had a summer dacha, you might not see an extreme makeover of Canada’s reigning Olympic hockey gold-medal winners from Vancouver, but there will be definitely be lots of freshly-scrubbed new kids.

Maybe a 50-per-cent turnover?

“I think you’ll see 10 to 12 ­different faces,” said Steve Yzerman, who has a tough act to follow as the team GM.

The big bodies of the nasty Lucic and the shutdown centre Staal may be more of a weapon on an NHL rink where it’s more bumper cars and a lot more cycling of the puck along the boards to crash the blue paint.

Fleury, who was along for the ride in Vancouver watching Martin Brodeur and Roberto Luongo in 2010, will be No. 1 or 1a in net in Sochi. Sidney Crosby, as long as he stays healthy, Rick Nash, Shea Weber, Corey Perry and Jonathan Toews are givens to return.

Duncan Keith, even though his game isn’t as rock solid today as it was then, maybe because he has been over-extended, and Brent Seabrook on defence are close because they’re going to need some experienced hands back there.

Ryan Getzlaf, even having a crummy year, works so well with Perry. Jarome Iginla still has lots of game, but he’ll be 36 in the winter of 2014. Luongo, the goalie of record in the gold-medal game in Vancouver, will be 34.

Joe Thornton, Eric Staal, Mike Richards, Patrick Marleau, Patrice Bergeron and Drew Doughty were there in 2010, but are they locks? I don’t think so. Thornton struggled with the pace then. Bergeron is a terrific two-way player in Boston, but was a faceoff specialist in Vancouver who didn’t get a lot of ice time.

Brodeur, Scott Niedermayer (retired), Chris Pronger, Dany Heatley, Brenden Morrow and maybe Dan Boyle, all on the 2010 Olympic squad, could be out for age (Brodeur would be 41, Boyle would be 37), body wearing down (Pronger, who would also be 39 and Morrow) or game going downhill (Heatley).

“Some guys retire, a lot changes in four years, young guys come along,” said Yzerman. “We’re still two years away (from Sochi).Players get hurt, young guys don’t develop as you’d expect and veterans have a resurgence, but there will be some turnover, for sure.”

Stamkos, who’s on his way to his second Rocket Richard trophy, was on the bubble in 2010, in the midst of a 51-goal season. Why didn’t they take him?

“I wouldn’t say every decision we made was the right one, but we won. He was a young player and parts of his game needed to improve. Young guys need to round out their games,” Yzerman said.

Stamkos was bummed about not getting picked for Vancouver, but he also knew he was new to the NHL party. Yzerman was still working for the Red Wings then. He came on board with the Lightning in the spring of 2010.

“When Steve took the job with our team (Tampa Bay) I told him he’d have a harder time explaining it to Marty St. Louis than me. I was 19 at the time. I didn’t expect to get my name called. I was thrilled to be in the mix. It was a good experience to be mentioned in that breath,” said Stamkos, who was watching the gold medal game on TV with a couple of Lightning teammates. He was fan, like the rest of Canada.

He’ll be on the ice in Sochi, if the NHLers are there. They haven’t finalized it yet. “There’s obviously a lot of young guys coming in, prepared to play in this league. You see the results. They’re some of the top players in the league,” he said.

The bigger European surface will force Yzerman and his staff to place more emphasis on footspeed, moreso than in Vancouver. Up front or back though Yzerman, who played in Nagano in 1998 and won a gold medal in 2002 in Salt Lake City with his aching knee full of pain-killer, is a bigger believer in ice savvy too.

“Whether it’s at forward or on defence, intelligence is the most important thing. You’re playing with different players … we put so much importance in that tournament and there’s so little time to prepare. Chris Pronger was a good player for us in the Olympics and he didn’t skate like he did when he was a kid, but he’s so smart and he passes the puck so well. He knows where to go and, as the tournament went on, he got better and better. That said, on a big ice surface, it’s more important that defencemen are mobile,” said Yzerman, who did toss out a caveat. “We had Mike Commodore with us in 2007 in Europe in the world championships and he was smart and knew how to angle people off. He was very effective for us.”

Changing of the guard in goal? Brodeur has had his time, and Luongo will be in his mid-30s.

“Whether Marty’s still playing we don’t know, but Roberto is playing pretty well this year … that poor guy is under the spotlight all the time. I don’t know if age is an issue there,” said Yzerman. “But Fleury was the third goalie in Vancouver and is in the prime of his career. We’ll see about Roberto.”

If it’s not Fleury and Price crowding the issue, I’d be surprised. There aren’t a lot of options for Canada in net, as Yzerman fully acknowledges. Canada isn’t turning out a lot of high-end NHL goalies right now. Jonathan Quick is American. So is Jimmy Howard. Then you’ve Henrik Lundqvist (Swede), Pekka Rinne, Kari Lehtonen, Tuukka Rask (Finns), Jaroslav Halak (Slovak).

“Things go in cycles. I don’t know why we don’t have the up-and-comers (Canada), but at some point we’ll get the next one coming along. Seems like every good goalie is Swedish or Finnish now. Maybe we need to go over there to see what they’re doing to develop their goalies so we get it figured out,” Yzerman said.

What has Yzerman learned from his Olympic playing and managing? It’s not about re-inventing the wheel.

“You need good goaltending, I know that. Look at the Czechs winning in ’98 (Dominik Hasek). There we were humming along in the tournament, but it’s single elimination and we lose in a shootout. In ’02, we got it. In Vancouver, we had great chances in the gold medal game, but Ryan Miller made some great saves (to get it to OT),” he said.

Western Conference:

The Alexander Radulov walking out on the Nashville Predators saga has NHL general managers on alert because they don’t want to be left holding the bag if, say, they take Nail Yakupov No. 1 or Mikhail Grigorenko No. 2 in the June draft and they high-tail it back to Russia for gobs more money than an entry-level NHL contract for a first-rounder.

“You do as much homework as you can on a player, what kind of character he has, what drives him. The general consensus is, say, if they’re here playing junior in North America (Yakupov in Sarnia, Grigorenko in Quebec City and fellow Russian Alex Galchenyuk, also in Sarnia), the player wants to be here. I think the Radulov situation might be a one-off. The top Russian players who’ve made the committment to come over (Malkin) are staying. They do have leverage of going back to Russia which can help with an NHL contract. Yeah, that has to come into consideration, but I look at the kids in this draft, I think if you like them you’ll take them and you’ll sign them.”

**

There’s a body of thought that Predators GM David Poile, who has been a general manager for 2,239 games in Washington and Nashville — second only to Glen Sather (2,480), with the Edmonton Oilers and New York Rangers — might be looking at retiring soon, grooming Paul Fenton to take his job.

Poile is 63 and maybe he has worked so hard to get Radulov back to try and surround his unrestricted free agent (UFA) defenceman Ryan Suter and his restricted free agent captain Shea Weber with the talent to keep them, because he knows the clock is ticking. He dismissed the thought of him being tired and maybe getting away to Florida for the winters. After all, Sather is 68 and still going at it, a cigar in his mouth.

“I just got an (three-year) extension. I haven’t thought of quitting, but now you’re giving me something else to think about today,” Poile said with a laugh after the Radulov returns presser this week. “How long is Glen going to do it? Why is he still doing it? He’s already won something.”

Poile hasn’t. He’s a good man who has built good teams and deserves to hold the Stanley Cup at least once.

This ’n’ that

With all the Detroit Red Wings’ injuries they’ve had to look at more farmhands than normal and the one who’s made the best impression is winger Gustav Nyquist, a little dynamo who had three years at the University of Maine and was a Hobey Baker finalist. He played an excellent game against the Cup threat Rangers in 17 minutes of work this week. “Smart player, makes the right decisions,” said fellow Swede Henrik Zetterberg, who centred for Nyqvist and Valtteri Filppula.

Jordan Eberle likes Steve Stamkos, but has a man crush on Martin St. Louis. “My favourite player. He’s awesome, he’s the leader on their team,” Eberle said. St. Louis played 28 minutes against the Toronto Maple Leafs 10 days ago, in a game that didn’t go to OT. That’s a ton for a forward.

After he missed half the season with a concussion, the St. Louis Blues are getting Alex Steen back by the end of this month. That’s like making a trade. He’s a solid top-six forward who was plus-20 in 36 games (13 goals).

Mikko Koivu is back playing in Minnesota after missing 15 games with a bum shoulder, but the question is why when they could be a lottery team? Is he feeling some pressure to play in the worlds where the Finns are defending champs and the tournament is in Helsinki and Stockholm? The Wild are 8-16-3 without their captain. Matt Cullen had to fill in on defence late in the win over the Calgary Flames when they lost three guys, including Jared Spurgeon to a possible concussion after an Alex Tanguay elbow. Tom Gilbert played 31 minutes in the game. Years back, the Oilers were down to three defencemen for a lot longer than the last five minutes of the third and OT as Cullen was. Gilbert played a ton that night, too.

Congrats to Tony DaCosta, the hard-working Wild equipment manager who just worked his 1,500th game. DaCosta has been with them since their inception in 2000 after starting as a helper with the Winnipeg Jets. He survived the wild equipment truck fire in Kanata, Ont., before an Ottawa Senators game that destroyed the club’s gear.

Eastern Conference:

The MVP race was still in question a week ago even, if Stamkos’ Lightning are a lottery team, not a playoff team, because Stamkos was 11 goals ahead in the Rocket Richard trophy race, had 42 even-strength goals with 10 game-winners, but now Pittsburgh Penguins sniper Evgeni Malkin is only seven back (52-45). Stamkos scored two on Saturday to extend his lead.

“Malkin has been been magnificent,” said Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson.

It’s always been a thorny debate: can a player get the Hart Trophy if his team doesn’t get to the Stanley Cup tournament? The last time it happened was 1988, with Malkin’s boss, Mario Lemieux and the Penguins, but Mario had 169 points and won the scoring title in 1987-88.

“The name of the game is to win, so generally you look at who has the biggest impact on his team, but every now and then a player is so important to his team you have to give him consideration,” Yzerman said.

Stamkos was close then in the scoring race, but no longer.

“Look at what Malkin did when Crosby was out? It’s a good race (with Stamkos), but he keeps getting those four and five-point nights,” said Oilers winger Jordan Eberle.

Malkin has finished second twice to Alex Ovechkin in Hart Trophy voting.

**

The line’s forming to the right for Florida UFA defenceman Jason Garrison, who has 16 goals, second only to Erik Karlsson. The Panthers have offered $2.5 million a year, but he’s barely given the offer the time of day after making $600,000 this year. The feeling is he figures he can get $4 million on the open market. Should the Oilers be in the hunt? Yes, but with reservations. They could use somebody to pound the puck — he’s a shooter not a passer, playing with Brian Campbell which gives him the leeway to fire away — but there are niggling concerns.

“He’s a No. 5 defenceman,” said one NHL team executive. Plus, he’s only lit it up for one year. There’s no body of work here. That said, it’s a very shallow free-agent market for blue-liners, so he’s holding all the cards. Garrison is six-foot-two and 220lbs, but not physical. He’s only 27, from Vancouver. The Oilers are probably on the hunt.

**

Yzerman has wheeled and dealed to get two first-round and four second-round picks in the June draft, all with an eye on going after a young goalie. It’s fair to say goaltending is the No. 1 priority for the Lightning?

“Either we stop more or we score more, one of the two,” Yzerman said. “And if we’re going to score more we better score a lot more.”

Would the player they’re looking at be Schneider?

“Mathieu Schneider?” Yzerman said, winking.

The Lightning and the Blue Jackets are both assembling war chests to go after Luongo’s right-hand man, Cory Schneider, although sources say Yzerman is also keeping a serious eye on Quick’s backup Jonathan Bernier. Why? Because Tampa Bay’s head of amateur scouting, Al Murray, used to work for the Kings and was behind them taking Bernier in Round 1.

This ’n’ that

The Panthers drafted Jonathan Huberdeau, the best Canadian junior player, as a winger, but there’s serious talk of trying him as an NHL centre. Huberdeau (Saint John Screaming Eagles of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League) made the club at camp last fall, but he only weighed 173 pounds and there were concerns players would take runs at him. “I would say everybody’s happy with their picks in the top four last year (Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Gabriel Landeskog, Huberdeau and Adam Larsson),” said Florida GM Dale Tallon.

The little dynamo Tyler Ennis has been outstanding for the Buffalo Sabres in their surge for a playoff spot. He’s got 27 points in 41 games (he missed 34 with a sports hernia) and playing with Mike Foligno’s son Marcus and Drew Stafford, they have 33 points in the last six games. Stafford, after struggling mightily for the first five months, has 12 points in those half-dozen games. Foligno isn’t as tough as the departed Zack Kassian (for Cody Hodgson), but he’s got better hands.

You have to figure Stamkos will have higher-end linemates in Sochi that his wingers against the Oilers Thursday — J.T. Wyman and Trevor Smith — on the injury-riddled Lightning. Wyman sounds like he should be on stage at Tootsie’s in Nashville.

Classy gesture, also an expensive one, by Tampa Bay owner Jeff Vinik whereby he gives $50,000 to the charity of choice for a Hero in the Community initiative. “You’ll see who they’ve picked on the scoreboard early in the first period of every game with their story. It’s really nice,” said Scotty Bowman, who spends his winters in Florida and attends lots of Lightning games. It’s a five-year endeavour. That’s over $10 million out of Vinik’s pocket.

He Said It:

“Yeah, she’s not allowed to drive anymore.”

Devin Setoguchi, who was hit by a car as an 80-year-old paralyzed woman hit go instead of stop on her trigger control and drove through the door of a chiropractor’s office in San Jose while the Wild forward was standing outside minding his own business..

By the numbers:

5 overtime goals since Jan. 1, 2011, by David Jones, most in the NHL.

0 Mike Ribeiro, who had a penalty shot against Vancouver Thursday is 0-for-3 in his career.

3 Cory Schneider has stopped all three of his penalty shots this year, including the one on Ribeiro.

Matty’s Short Shifts:

The longer it goes without the Ducks announcing they’ve signed their draft pick Justin Schultz, by far the best college defenceman this year and maybe the top college player (University of Wisconsin) period, the more it looks like Schultz wants to be a free-agent and play somewhere else. Absolutely the Oilers are looking at him. They can sell him on getting the puck up to Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle, plus he can play right away, but there’s a stampede of teams wanting him. Schultz can be an UFA, just as Blake Wheeler was, because he would be unsigned four years after being drafted and one of those years played junior A. Schultz played for Westside in Kelowna, B.C., for Edmonton’s Gary Gelinas.

Duncan Keith is a hell of a player, a Norris Trophy winger, but his chicken-wing elbow that felled former scoring champ Daniel Sedin and got him a five-game suspension was a silly brain cramp. To be honest, he’s lucky he only got five. Because he didn’t have a long rap sheet he only had to pay a $150,000 fine. Small change when you’re making $6 million. Keith had 22 penalty minutes last year — that’s Lady Byng material. He has 42 this year.

Gabriel Landeskog is one of those five-tool players — scores, scores in traffic, tough, responsible without the puck and big heart — for the Colorado Avalanche, but I’m not sure why Nugent-Hopkins has fallen into the “he’s going to need a great finish to win the Calder” category. Going into Saturday’s games, Landeskog, Adam Henrique and Nugent-Hopkins all had 47 points. Nugent-Hopkins had played 55 games; Landeskog 76, Henrique 66. It wasn’t Nugent-Hopkins’ fault he missed 20 with two shoulder problems. Landeskog is 20 years old, Henrique is 22, Nugent-Hopkins turns 19 after the season ends. He’s the youngest player in the league. Shouldn’t that count for something?

New Jersey Devils sniper Ilya Kovalchuk already has 400 goals and he’s only 28. No Russian has ever had 500 (Sergei Fedorov is closest at 483). Kovalchuk should easily join the other 19 guys who scored 600 or more, unless he rips up a knee or something. Washington Capitals star Alexander Ovechkin is flashier, but is Kovalchuk a better two-way player?

Jaden Schwartz, who scored in his first two games with the St. Louis Blues after leaving Colorado College — first teenager to do that since Eric Lindros with the Philadelphia Flyers in 1992 — roomed with Nugent-Hopkins at last summer’s evaluation camp at Rexall Place in August. “I texted him right away when he got called up (Blues). Everybody thinks he’s older, but he’s only 19. Awesome he can make the jump so fast,” Nugent-Hopkins said.

Is there any possibility Pekka Rinne is running out of gas in Nashville, giving up 12 goals in his last three starts? The Predators say he’s fine, but this is the wrong time to be struggling. They can’t afford to have Rinne weary going into the playoffs. He’s their ace in the hole.

If you didn’t know it already, Dominik Hasek is the Satchel Paige of hockey players. He’s 47 and he’s not ready to put away the tools of ignorance, even though he didn’t play this season after a year with Moscow Spartak. He still feels he’s got some gas in his tank, but not this year. He hasn’t ballooned to Michelin Man size, but if he gets no offers by July 1, he swears that’s it. Hey, Dom. Quit and you’ll be in the Hall of Fame in three years.

There’s a lot of love for New York goalie Henrik Lundqvist as the Vezina Trophy winner because he’s there every night for the Rangers, but if I had a vote (I don’t, the GM’s vote on this award) it would go to Jonathan Quick in L.A. Eight shutouts now and in 15 other games he’s allowed one goal. You’d think he’d have won them all, but he’s 15-4-4 with the offensively challenged Kings. That club is swimming with the fishes without Quick.

Flames coach Brent Sutter has taken major grief for having Blake Comeau and Blair Jones go in a shootout against the Wild, leaving Jarome Iginla, Alex Tanguay and Curtis Glencross on the bench, but has anybody looked at Iggy’s shootout stats? He’s two for seven this year, Tanguay is one for eight and he was hurt in the Wild loss. Glencross is zero for three. Maybe he could have gone with Olli Jokinen (three for eight), but unless you have automatic scorers like Ilya Kovalchuk (10 for 12) or Malkin (eight for 11), it’s hit or miss, even with big guns. The Sedins never shoot for the Canucks in Vancouver, same with Sharks captain Joe Thornton in San Jose. Comeau has been a huge disappointment in Calgary after they got him on waivers, though (four goals in 51 games). Looks like the Islanders knew what they were doing giving up on him.

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